Somerville High School - Radiator Yearbook (Somerville, MA)

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SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL RADIATOR 9 gail was a “peach, and he was glad she was going to stay all summer. Sydney.” said his mother, how on earth do you know all about Abigail?” Oh, the kid's been watching Mrs. Cook scrub her back porch. And I want to meet Abigail. he ended. Mrs. Jones chuckled. She'll probably come over to my house for eggs in the morning, and if you'll happen over I'll introduce you. Fine and dandy! I'll he there. What time? “ ’Bout half-past six. and she chuckled again. “Won't she stay to breakfast, too?’’ If you can't get up early one morning, you don't deserve to meet her, and I shan't say one word about you. And Mrs. Jones went down the steps laughing. At the gate she met Mrs. Cook, and they walked down the road to Miss Maria’s yard together. Sydney Barker has seen her niece already, and he thinks she’s terrible pretty. said Mrs. Jones in a stage whisper. Land sakes! What’ll his mother say? an- swered Mrs. Cook. I don't know. said her neighbor darkly, and started across the street to her own house. There! she said, as she started to get her din ner. '1 suppose I shouldn't have done that, but it's temperance meeting this afternoon, and they’ve got to have something to talk about.” However. Monday afternoon lie walked home from down town with Abigail, and then the fun began. It had happened this way: Abigail was coming home carrying a box of berries and a jar of cream, with mail and other bundles. Now. how- ever well berries and cream may be on the supper table, they arc awkward things to bring home. Just outside the village, in a wild effort to keep the cream from falling. Abigail had dropped her let- ters. Sydney was just behind, and he picked up her mail, relieved her of the cream, and walked on beside her. lie kept tight hold of the cream, so there was nothing she could do. Presently they met Mrs. Cook driving with a stout, loud-voiced woman, behind a fat old brown horse. Mrs. Cook’s face assumed a complacent air. and both women bowed delightedly. Mrs. Cook called on me this morning. said the girl. Poor thing! Did she have to wait all day yes- terday?” said Sydney. I guess she made up for it. I can’t think of anything I didn’t tell her. But. said he solemnly. Mrs. Cook is nothing to the person she was with just now. That was Mchitable. and whereas Mrs. Cook will simply re- port the fact that we were walking together. Mc- hitable will be able to repeat our conversation. Oh!” laughed Abigail. I hope it will be inter- esting. “It will be. and when I hear it I'll come and tell you. he said. Miss Maria met her niece in the hall. How du. you meet Sydney Parker? she asked. Oh! and Abigail remembered. '1 he cream started to fall, and in her attempt to catch it. Miss Maria forgot her question. That evening Mrs. Cook went to call on the Parkers so early that they were still at dinner. She sat down in the sitting room to wait, selecting the chair whence she could see the reflecting doors of the china cabinet in the corner of the dining- room. When they were through, she saw Sydney and his elder sister start for the kitchen door, and she called. “Sydney! Remembering the glass doors, the young man turned and came back into the sitting room. “I saw you walking up with Miss Maria’s niece.” She spoke t the son. but she kept her eye on his mother. Neither showing any signs of emotion, she tried again. She’s a real pleasant girl, I think. Mrs. Cook, she is the nicest girl I ever met in my life, and I am going to call on her as soon as my mother will let me. That was cream and the mail I was carrying for her to-day. There was Miss Maria's Congregationalist and the Chronicle, but the letters fell wrong side up. He stopped for breath, and his mother hastily changed the conver- sation to the new minister. Mrs. Cook admitted to herself that she had gained little by that call, but to the neighbors she said that Sydney’s mother would not let him call on Abigail. Wednesday Sydney heard that, before MchitabL could tell her sister what he had said to Abigail, Mrs. Cook had unwittingly said they couldn't hear a word of it. That night lie called on Abigail, and wisely included her aunt in the call, so that before many days he was doing Miss Maria's errands, and she was saying how college had improved him. So affairs went on all summer, and Sydney had even taken Abigail to a band concert, which was very significant. Daily Mrs. Cook reported the sorrows of Mrs. Parker, till it was getting to be an old story. Suddenly, to the consternation of all. a young man appeared at Miss Maria's. It was on a Thurs- day. and Mrs. Cook was on her weekly visit to the. nearest town. So for once it was Mrs. Jones who reported what he was. Abigail had come over for extra eggs, and confided to her that it was her fiance, and he had come to go home with her Sat- urday morning. Affairs were complicated now. in- deed. The younger part of the neighborhood in- sisted on a duel, and went around listening for a pistol shot. Friday night they saw Sydney go in Miss Maria’s door, but they heard only the sounds of the old piano protesting against rag-time. Saturday morning, when the village hack drove up to Miss Maria’s gate, every woman in the neigh- borhood was in her yard or on her steps shaking rugs. Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Parker came out on the sidewalk to say good-by to Abigail. After she had gone, they stopped for a few moments to talk, and the little Parker girl came out and called to her mother. Say. mother, Mary says she won't keep Syd- ney's breakfast another minute, and lie simply won't get up.”

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8 SOMERVILLK HIGH SCHOOL RADIATOR XLhc Coming of Bbtgail y y fl arion Goodwin Eaton, X., '0(5 ISS MARIA'S niece was coming to visit her. and there was great excite- ment among Miss Maria's neighbors. Parson Cook’s wife had found out the news. She had seen the spare room comforter airing. and had hastened through the yard of the big house, that shut off a more extended view, to interrogate Miss Maria. She was armed with a quart of straw- berries as an excuse, and though Miss Maria was reticent, she was like a sponge in the hands of this skilful extractor of secrets. “Good morning. Miss Maria, want a whole quart or a half this morning?” said Mrs. Cook. A quart, please.” replied Miss Maria in her thin, sweet voice, like the high string of an old violin. While she took the berries into the house, Mrs. Cook looked eagerly around the yard, and even tried to catch a glimpse of the sitting-room through the vine-covered window that opened at the end of the porch. This back porch faced the south, and a row of tidies and braided mats were sunning on a line strung across from the shakv posts. On a line in the yard, between two great oak trees, was the comforter, and beside it more rugs, one of them with an impossible puppy woven in the centre. “Cleaning your spare room? Mrs. Cook called into the kitchen. Yes, I am,” said Miss Maria, coming to the door. Going to take the carpet up?” Well. no. it didn't seem dusty. lied Miss Maria bravely, though she knew her neighl or knew it was because she could not afford to hire a boy to do it. Land! what’s the use, when you don't have no- body to use it? Mrs. Cook replied tactfully. Miss Maria bridled. I'm going to have some one to use it.—my niece, Abigail Jenner. She’s coming to live with me this summer,” she added proudly. The parson's wife knew that she had gained enough for one day. and hurried home, stopping at the door of the big house to tell the news. The next night Abigail arrived, but so late that only Mrs. Clarissa Jones, who lived directly oppo- site. could have seen her trunk carried in the door where Miss Maria stood holding a smoking lamp above her head. But Mrs. Jones was fast asleep. Ivarlv the next morning Abigail awoke, and lay still a moment wondering what had roused her. The roosters were comparing breakfasts on a” sides, but above their cries came the notes of a re- vival hymn, sung in a harsh, shaky, and somewhat hoarse tenor. Hastily donning her dressing- gown. the girl knelt on a cricket by the open win- dow and peered sleepily out. The sun, too, was still sleepy, and in the long shadows the cobwebs still lay. The voice came really from further up the street, but echoed back and forth between the houses till it was hard to locate it. Miss Maria’s house stood in a quarter-acre of unkempt yard. Two terraces sloped down to the street, and two crumbling flights of steps, with a weedy path be- tween. led to the front door. The blinds were sag- ging. and the house had not been painted for many years, but woodbine had clambered over the porch, and the apple trees had grown close around it as if to hide the lack. Across the way Mrs. Jones' white house set close to the street in a friendly manner, and presently Mrs. Jones came out on her piazza and called to her neighbor next door. The parson ain't so hoarse this morning, and he’s sung six hymns without stopping. Guess his cold’s better,” and she laughed in a jolly, side- shaking fashion. Her neighbor answered her, and all the neighborhood knew it was time to be up. W hen Abigail came down, there was a smell of coffee in the house, and the table was already set. Her aunt sent the girl across the street to Mrs. Jones' for the eggs, and then they sat down to breakfast. After the morning work was done. Miss Maria sat down to her knitting, and her niece stepped out on the front porch with a book. It was a morning in late June, and though it was Saturday, all the children were in the woods hunting for pink lady's slippers for Flower Sunday. Occasionally some farmer’s team jogged along, and once an auto- mobile rushed madly by. the dust settling slowly be- hind it as if even the road was turning up its nose. Presently far down the road Abigail heard a merry, tuneless whistle. A small girl and a little black and white dog tumbled through the fence of the big house next door and ran down the road, to come back with a young man carrying a big suit- case. He glanced up at Abigail, and then turned to the small girl. Abigail caught the word peach, and saw the little girl shake her head se- verely, and then begin to talk, meanwhile checking off items on her fingers. Through the hedge of honcy-sucklc bushes she saw them go up the steps of the big yellow house to the porch, where Sirs. Jones was standing. Then Abigail went in tactfully to interrogate her aunt about their next-door neighbors. She soon found out that their name was Parker, and that, though Mr. Parker was a native of the town, he was contaminated by Mrs. Parker, who was city folks,” and looked upon as a nice woman, but cranky. 1 think. said Miss Maria. I just heard the son go bv. You can always tell his whistle because tlicre isn't any tunc to it. Maybe you heard him, too? Yes,” said Abigail tentatively, “he had a dress- suit-case.” Meanwhile Mr. Parker had greeted his mother and Mrs. Jones with the announcement that Abi-

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10 SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL RADIATOR Htbletfc Wotcs On Monday. September 11. Captain Commins is- sued the call for football candidates. About thirty men reported for practice at 1 .roadway field, nine of whom have heretofore won their S.” The new material is also good, and. with Coach Cuddy again in charge of the players, Somerville looks like a winner. The line is fully as heavy as last year's, and al- though the backfield has not been as heavy, it will make up in speed what it lacks in weight. The daily work consists of tackling the dummy, signal practice, and a short scrimmage with the second eleven. The second team has organized, and has elected McLaughlin captain. Assistant Manager Whitnev is managing the second, and Bergen Reynolds is in charge of the first team. Leo II afford assisted Coach Cuddy during Sep- tember. His work, most of it. was devoted to the second eleven. At the annual meeting of the Interscholastic League at Young's Hotel September 30. II. F. Stone was re-elected secretary; George Hosmcr, Latin, and Mr. Stone. English, were elected gradu- ate members, and Bergen Reynolds, Latin. ‘00, was elected undergraduate member. Those who have not yet joined the Athletic As- sociation ought to do so soon, at least before Thanksgiving Day's game. The many Somerville friends of Stacey and Blair turned out to see the llarvard-Bowdoin game, in which both of these old Somerville stars partici- pated. Blair directing the Bowdoin team from quarterback, while Stacey played a good game against the famous Brill. The fact that a number of schools have canceled their games with us has caused the management much uncalled-for trouble and annoyance. It cer- tainly doesn’t show the true sportsmanlike spirit. Do your share toward striving for the pennant. Attend the games! To quote a certain Boston paper, our football captain is a sterling leader. Follow your leader, boys, and the championship is ours. ----------------------------- athletic association The annual meeting of the Somerville High School A. A. was held September 20 at the Latin School. The following officers were elected: President. Russell Freeman, K..'0(5; vice-president. Malcolm Fillmore. L., '0(5: secretary, Seward Jarvis. L.. '00; treasurer, H. L. Jones; faculty members. G. Y. Hosmcr, L.. and H. F. Sears, K.; graduate members, Chester Harts, L.. and Herbert Stone, E. Richard Keves, E., '()(». was elected manager of the baseball team for 1000. and Lawrence Bowlby, L., '07. was elected assistant manager. --------------------------- ©Iris’ J5asl;ct Ball TEeam The candidates for the girls’ basket' ball team were called out during the latter part of October. The girls are again in charge of Miss Thayer, who coached them so successfully last year. At this writing, however, no captain had been elected. A number of last year’s team have graduated, leaving many positions open to new aspirants. It is the wish of the coach and others in charge that all the girls who play or wish to play would come out to practice at once, as a number of challenges have already been received from teams in the vicinity. -------------------------------------- Somerville, 14; B. C. fl rcp. S., 0 September 27 Somerville opened the football sea- son by defeating B. C. Prep. School on Broadway field, 11-0. Somerville’s fumbling at crucial points of the game accounts for her comparatively poor showing, as Prep. at no time was able to gain hci